Since I read your blog on the aggregator, I can't quite recall the old layout? Was it nicer? Is this one nicer? Can you put the old one back on, then this one so people can compare? Haha, best and keep on blogging.

You didn't have user tests for the various old/new formats before changing?

More precisely, your director didn't draft a group to deliberate options, including but not limited to user testing, and then the group made a recommendation to your director which had neither weight nor urgency behind it and was summarily never acted upon?

And then changes were made arbitrarily, leaving the public service staff to 1) discover the changes on their own and 2) explain the changes to every patron that angrily storms the desk, demanding to know what happened to the old version?

My director wants you to have a focus group of students who've never read your blog decide on your layout. If they don't agree with each other, go with the one who whines the loudest. Also, she wants you to apologize to them for changing things without consulting them first.

You could also make changing the layout into a 12 (or more)-point action plan, minutely detailing all the 'actionable items' and deliverables. Then design a user survey by committee, then get sidetracked by the design and server problems with the user survey as well as the turf wars with the systems people, like we're doing in our library...

I agree with both Anonymous who said "create a committee" and Gus and Fer who said "the group made a recommendation to the director which had neither weight nor urgency behind it and was summarily never acted upon." Right on. I have seen this happpen time after time in the library system that I work in.